Commentary

LBJ:

This poster is number one in a series that will depict famous Texans through large-scale letterpress graphic portraits and text that represents the “Pure Texas Talk” character of the individuals through personal and little known quotes.

My goal is to humanize these individuals beyond the modern sound-bite perception as means of endearing these historical Texas figures to a new generation of Texans.

Producing these posters on historical letterpress equipment yields a unique visual communication experience to the viewer that is both current as an emerging art form and innovative in the field of letterpress printing do to its “bigger than Texas” scale (30” x 40”).

The large-scale poster image utilizes a flat graphic hand-drawn illustration that is hand-carved into a 30”x40” linoleum block in reverse. This gives the image an approachable humanistic letterpress quality that feels right for the communication.Each poster in each series is a one-of a-kind.

Custom inks are hand mixed and brayerd onto the image and printed on a “Charles Brand” 34” x 48” etching press that has been converted to a letterpress.

The message is conveyed with 120pt vintage wood-type that is hand set and kerned letter-by-letter for the blue-black ink run overprinting the image. The bold Gothic wood-type with it 70 plus years of message making patina is a perfect vehicle for LBJ’s tell-it-like-it-is Texas prose.